


Till Death Do Us Part

by Coldest_Fire



Series: Stained Glass Saints [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angelus is his own warning, Angst and Tragedy, Author Is Not Religious, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Panic Attack, Panic Attacks, Prophetic Visions, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Ruined wedding, Stalking, Tragedy, it's going to get worse after this, no happy ending, period-typical views of mental illness, survivor's guilt, think of this as a prologue, this could've been T but it's the start of a mostly E series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29349783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldest_Fire/pseuds/Coldest_Fire
Summary: At age eleven, Drusilla was to be a flower girl for her sister's wedding--instead she saw impending tragedy, and, trying to prevent it, began her own demise. It was that night, the Devil first lay his eyes on her, and learned that she had a unique gift, to see the future.Cecelia loses a Fiancé that night, but it is Drusilla who will never be the same.“It isn’t your time yet,” the devil set a hand on her shoulder, and she felt the chill, the stickiness of blood. She was taller, older. The flowers and the colour leeched from her dress, leaving her, as she’d envisioned in white. Her dress was simple, not like Cecelia’s was to be, and then it tore in invisible hands, her skin staining blue and black and violet, growing sticky with red. The colour drained out of her skin between the blood and the bruising, nearly as pale as what of the fabric remained. His fingers dug in harder, and she whimpered. “But I will have you, lover,” He assured her.
Relationships: Angelus/Darla (BtVS)
Series: Stained Glass Saints [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155878
Kudos: 1





	1. Not Your Time

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is my second (third??) attempt at this backstory, because I love Dru. this fic is gonna be 2 chapters, just the wedding, then another fic that's while angelus/darla are gone, then one about her family, then one about the nuns, then an epilogue, I think. so Other than the epilogue, this has the least archive warnings, I think. And I expect most of the rest is gonna be explicit. So yeah.
> 
> I'm notorious for needing things to end well, so I'll be doing an epilogue, but lots of the instalments before it are tragedies, so just go into this with that expectation, I guess?

_1852_

She was a flower girl, dressed in light blue with embroidered flowers around the hem of her dress. SHe’d done most of the work herself so her mum could work on Cecelia’s gown. Some of the roses were perhaps a little warped.A little bent. A stem that didn’t know if it wanted to hold it. It was beautiful all the same. She’d never yet worn it. Her mum was concerned—didn’t want her to sully the hems so close to the wedding. Wouldn’t look right if she was all dirty.

When her mum came to dole out dresses, Drusilla did a little twirl before the mirror, not seeing, nor knowing what was to come. Her gift—or curse, hadn’t taken her yet. That came later, when Cecelia came out of her room where Anne had been helping her with her hair. It had been braided back into an elegant twist beneath the veil, a crown of flowers woven from their own garden adorning her head. Drusilla thought she looked every bit as radiant as Queen Victoria had, a few years earlier, and wondered, absently, if portraits of Cecelia would be as popular. _One day._

Unlikely, but she dreamed of it as she got changed, wondering if her father was already checking in on George and his family—soon, she supposed to all be one family, in a matter of speaking. He was a kind man. She counted herself very fortunate that he was to be a brother to her.

One day, she expected, he’d stand beside Cecelia when Drusilla married, the two of them smiling up at her and some as-of-yet faceless husband. She saw herself in white, older and taller, and as beautiful as her sister. Not a speck of dirt on her hem. It was a pretty picture. Perhaps this came as cosmic punishment for thinking it possible at all. Perhaps the visions began as a way to reproach her when she dared dream.

Her dress was never to remain pristine. Red crept up the hem, and spattered her chest and legs. Her hands dripped red, stained so thoroughly red it would never be cleansed away. When she looked up, a breeze caught her hair, and she saw cobblestone beneath her feet, the small hill up to the church awash in autumn leaves. The facade of the church lit by torches, night had fallen, barely, the sun just crept beneath the horizon. Behind her was a small grove of trees that bore fruit in the summer, obscuring the stone wall around the church. There was no one outside with her but for George, who paced the small courtyard, in slow, contemplative circles, as though he was presenting his words to the benches on the lawn on either side, where he and Cecelia rested on chaperoned walks. He looked his best, in a fine suit, one of the flowers Cecelia wore in her hair tucked into the pocket of his jacket. “I, George Lewis, take you, Cecelia Keeble to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish,” he narrated, then tried saying it another way. More inflection. Less inflection. Softer, louder.

And then he was speaking to an audience. While his back was to the bench, a woman sat on the bench. Drusilla assumed she was a Lady—she looked wealthy, with her blonde hair all curled and arranged to a lovely updo, her gown something luxurious. Possibly silk, a flowing skirt with a tight bodice and a low neckline—enough so people had to be talking. Drusilla knew what people would say if they saw her in the back of the church. It could have been her wedding—the dress was a light almost golden colour, and certainly dramatic enough not to be common wear unless she was a Lady. Even more scandalous was that she seemed, at first, to be alone there. Perhaps she was George’s cousin, and he was to chaperone her.

She didn’t look it, even if George also had lighter hair. Something about her seemed wrong. Drusilla could see no evidence of it, but knew it all the same. She wasn’t right.

The man that found her was worse. His dark hair hung long, reaching his shoulders. He wore dark suit, his cravat a little askew. Clothes as luxurious as hers, by the cut and appearance of the fabrics. Perhaps he was her husband. He didn’t seem like one who would marry. He gave her the impression of a rake, something about the casual disarray of his attire, or perhaps the ease with which he approached the Lady. And then touched her, his hands setting on her shoulders, as he leaned down to speak to her. “Are you getting sentimental?” He asked, his voice coloured with an Irish accent.

She laughed, “for what? A man to own me?” She challenged. “If I’d wanted a husband, I’d have taken any man I wanted.” She seemed rather forward, as though in her world, she could simply select a man and insist on his courtship. It seemed almost to make sense why she didn’t care that the man was touching her. “As a married woman, I’d _never_ have had the power I had in America,” she laughs, “I was rich. I knew enough about the people that mattered in my county that no one could fuck with me…”

Drusilla covered her mouth at the Lady’s use of profanity.

“Unmarried, I owned those men as much as I own you,” she intoned, her hand skating up the side of his neck, and pulling his head down closer to hers. Drusilla was rather shocked with her vulgarity and her forwardness. She had the air of a great Lady, perhaps one even with a title, but the manner of some scandalous, perhaps even illicit affair. She was unmarried, but touched him with ease, spoke of him as her property.

Inexplicably, he was worse. He made her stomach drop to the bloodied hem of her dress and twist, as though squeezed, rung dry. His eyes, when they turned to her, burned, as though he not only saw her, but intended her some great ill that cemented her to her place on the cobblestone, powerless. The woman perhaps owned him, but she did not rein him in. It felt as though to even look at him was mortal peril, some kind of sin.

_In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish._

The woman’s eyes followed George, as though she was stalking prey, the man as predatory, staring at Drusilla. He stared, eyes flicking up and down her, like he was sizing her up, determining what her presence meant, what he could _do._ There was intention spelled out in dark eyes, in words she didn’t—couldn’t speak.All at once, Drusilla felt as though the world was about to tip off the axis, and those eyes were going to be what pushed it. It was like the ground tilted beneath her, tried to throw her down. If she felt, perhaps, she’d fall off the ground as a whole, slip off into some void.

He promised destruction, but he never spoke a word.

“So faithful,” the Lady remarked, pointing to George, “he does the act well. Five minutes and I could make him foreswear every oath he makes.” Her lips curled into smirk, eyes scorching George. Drusilla could hardly believe what she was saying, though she had no time for ire before the man replied.

He shook his head, “man like him doesn’t have the stones,” the man replied, “bet his life you can’t have him.” His tone was playful—it wasn’t his life. Drusilla wanted to scream to George, but she couldn’t get sound from her throat. These two intended to hurt George, and he, seemingly unaware, was pacing and speaking his vows, an easy, careless joy blinding him.

The woman’s smile was predatory, shark’s jaws parting and showing her teeth. She leaned back into his shoulder, so their heads were breaths apart. “His life, and your body…or mine, if you think I’m capable of losing,” she negotiated, “it’s no fun if there’s no stakes,” she told him, pulling away after she spoke to return her eyes to George.

The man’s smirk grew, “you love to play with fire.”

She laughed as she rose, “I love to see you _burn_ for me,” she replied, before approaching George and affecting a far more innocent voice, tinged with an impression of despair. She was an actress. Nothing she performed held any truth, except perhaps her vulgarities with the man. Drusilla got the feeling she’d never really known fear. “Excuse me sir!” She called to him, “I’m horribly lost. I’m afraid I’ve been separated from my friends, and I’ve been wandering the churchyard looking for them, but I can’t find them. Would you help me?”

George stopped his rehearsing, looking about the courtyard for any sign of her entourage, “Do you recall where you were headed, Miss?” He asked, when there was nothing to be seen. The man had left, he was behind one of the fruit trees. The devil in the apple trees—it was as bleak as it was fitting.

She shook her head, “I recall we chose a new location. Somewhere on Park Street…” she said, naming a nearby street not oft travelled. George looked to the church, “I can get you there quickly. I cannot allow a woman to walk Park alone. This time of night who knows what would become of you?” He asked, to her vast amusement, though she masked it well. Drusilla lurched again, turning unsteadily as they passed through the trees and into he shadow of the wall, toward the gate. She ran forward into the trees, finally able to move, but freezing a ways back. There was the man, peering at them. She could go no closer.

“You’re so kind, sir,” she said, her tone low and smooth as silk, her evils were so physical, her voice an embodiment of it. She came closer, closer until he brushed the wall trying to preserve her decency. He looked to her, surprised, perhaps thinking she’d seen something. The man laughed, a single syllable. “Whatever could I do to repay you for taking me all the way to Park on my own?”

He had no time to respond before her lips were on his, and he first stilled, then stiffened, and then struggled, eventually pushing her away, sputtering. It took him time to process what he’d felt into words. The man became more brazen, leaning against his tree, and shaking his head.George finally found words. “Madam, I am a married man,” he plead, “I will convey you to Park if you’d have it, but I’ll have none of this.” He was insistent. He was a good man, Drusilla knew. He loved her sister.

“You’re not married yet,” the Lady insisted, “all men have their indiscretions before their wedding night.”

He shook his head, leaving the wall, heading toward the church, “terribly sorry, but I am not your man. I love my fiancee. I will do right by her.”

_And I promise to be faithful to you,_ he’d said.

Drusilla watched him reach the courtyard again, wiping his mouth. He didn’t know yet. The Lady approached the man, still behind Drusilla and said, “perhaps you’d have had a better shot…” to him, with a raised eyebrow.

He laughed, at her a moment, perhaps entertained that someone had resisted her at all. He ignored Drusilla when he stepped out from the trees, and she launched herself forward a moment before him, running through the courtyard impossibly fast, and pressing her back to George, who seemed not to even see her.She spread her arms, prepared to face the devil himself for him, not ready to see George get hurt. She was no true obstacle to the devil. He pushed her out of the way as though she weighed nothing, tossing her aside into the stone steps of the church.

He gripped George, one hand clapped over his mouth, the other around his waist, holding him from behind. George’s eyes scanned the area, trying to spot anyone that would save him. “If it’s any consolation to you,” the man said, a coarse Irish accent colouring his voice, “you’d never have been her man. She likes it rough.”

The woman strode out in front of him, watching as the man’s face from behind George grew a ridge, became that of a monster with golden eyes. With a flourish, he sunk his pointed teeth deep into George’s neck, red spattering his face. His eyes stayed on Drusilla as George grew limp, the fight drained from him alongside his life. His limbs slowly stilled, and he started to slacken, and pale. The church bell tolled, signalling 7PM, and the organ began. It was time for him to enter the church. Cecelia was waiting for him, soon her song would play and he wouldn’t be there. “Till death do you part,” the woman remarked.

The man discarded George to the cobblestones, and the thump of his body was asked by the final chime of the bell. The seventh.

She forgot her place. Forgot her danger. Drusilla ran to him, cradling him, fumbling with his arm for a pulse that wasn’t there, then his neck. Trying to breathe into him. His flesh was pallid, lifeless. She had to make him breathe. He was like a puppet, cast to the ground. Nothing to make him move. She could hardly comprehend him. “It isn’t your time yet,” the devil set a hand on her shoulder, and she felt the chill, the stickiness of blood.

And she was taller, older. The flowers and the colour leeched from her dress, leaving her, as she’d envisioned in white. Her dress was simple, not like Cecelia’s was to be, and then it tore in invisible hands, her skin staining blue and black and violet, growing sticky with red. The colour drained out of her skin between the blood and the bruising, nearly as pale as what of the fabric remained. His fingers dug in harder, and she whimpered. “But I _will_ have you, lover.” He Assured her.

She _screamed_.


	2. Prayers for Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vision Comes True

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some cursory notes here: the first is that I don't know what victorian meds were like firsthand. the medication I describe them giving dru is with a rough guess at what being given probably an opioid (which, morphine and opium were used as psych meds in these days) is like, combined with the fact that I do know what taking Ativan for panic attacks is like. This is going to read very anti-meds here, becasue it slows her down a lit, and is used to keep her from making a fuss, which might have saved George. That's not intentional. I'm on like 3 psych meds. I've had some rough times with them, but I'm writing this now because of psych meds. So don't read this as authorial bias against them--it's the situation. She's not experiencing psychosis, she's having a vision, and she doesn't choose to take the meds.
> 
> Now, I also toss around the term madness--it's just a period-accurate word. At the time, this would probably have been considered neurosis (which was coined in the 1700's) or hysteria, none of which are current psych terms.

She _screamed._

The door to her room revealed her sisters, who’d been just down the hall coming to see what was the matter. They found her, curled up on the ground before the mirror, her new dress on but not fastened, her eyes shut tight as she sobbed into her knees. “Drusilla?” Asked Anne, the next-eldest of the sisters, the pair rushing to her sides. Cecelia’s was the first hand to touch her, left shoulder, where the devil had touched. She shot forward, feeling any touch as an assault, and then turning to see her sister’s shock. Drusilla caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and realized blankly that she hardly looked human. Her dress half-undone, crinkled from her time on the floor, dark hair wild as her eyes, which stared back at her from a reddened, puffy face. The sleeve on her left side had slipped just enough to reveal the only sign of what she’d seen, a faint bruise, likely by her own hand where he’d touched her. Three finger marks impressed into her flesh. _Her dress was not bloody. The sun had not set._ She tried to remind herself of those things. _George was alive._

Cecelia and Anne seemed as horrified at her state as she was, if such a thing was even possible. “Drusilla?” Cecelia asked as she got up, and tried to approach her, hesitant after Drusilla’s rebuke. “Are you alright?”

She shook her head furiously, hands smoothing over her dress. The sleeves, the waist, the hem, feeling for the stickiness of blood. She needed to know there was no blood. “I…Cecelia, something horrible is about to happen… I…I don’t know how I know, but I _saw it.”_ She heard her own voice, choked with tears, and raised a hand to her face, trying to wipe some of it away. Cecelia helped her to the bed, her touch finally not feeling invasive while Anne gaped at her, not having left her spot. Drusilla knew she was frightening to look at.

“Cecelia, I’m going to fetch Mary with some medicine. I—I think Drusilla is hysterical,” she said, before she launched herself from the room, shutting the door quickly, as though whatever had infected Dru was certain to be contagious, and she wanted to avoid catching it.

Cecelia was as calm as could be expected. Her hands shook, but she was otherwise as composed as she could muster, “you saw something?” She asked, “did something happen out the window?” She asked, wondering if perhaps there was a bandit or something lying in wait like a trapdoor spider, concurrently wrong and right.

Drusilla shook her head… “not- not out the window. In the church yard, just before seven,” she stammered out, “there was this Lady, or she looked like a lady, but she was unspeakably vulgar, and she travelled with the devil-” she had to stop to breathe or she was going to choke. Her vision blurred, and she cast her eyes down, looking at Cecelia’s hands, so soon to be empty. The ring glinted up at her, beautiful, mocking. The twinkle of a star, and it _hurt_ to look at. She just couldn’t look at her face. “This terrible lady…and George was practicing his vows. Over and over. _Till death do you part,”_ she sobbed, her voice catching in her throat.

Cecelia froze, her hands stilling with the rest of her body, the muscles tensing. “George?” She asked, the syllable leaving her throat already bereft. It was like he was already lost after his name escaped her lungs.

Drusilla bit her lip, nodding hesitantly. “The lady… she’s the devil’s right hand… or else left. Left is his hand of choice,” she knew how she sounded, but the more words she could put in the way of the blow she was about to deal, the longer she got before she had to say it. “She tried to have him, but he— _faithful till death do you part,_ he said it. He—he really meant it, Cecelia,” she insisted, hearing herself spiral, words coming faster and faster. “The devil’s hand wanted him, some sort of contest, and when he wouldn’t abide her, the devil… He fell. George fell. I was there. I hit the stairs like nothing. I couldn’t stop—wasn’t my time, there was too much colour. I think I should always seek colour, so as not to wear it on my skin…” she stopped, the next breath hurting her lungs and chest and wheezing past her lips. Her hands were shaking, but she couldn’t really feel them. It was pins and needles, prickling cheeks, and the bruise on her shoulder resonating as the rest of her seemed to float above herself.

She couldn’t breathe this far from her body, every breath came out a rasp, hoarse and beastial, as though it wasn’t her but something monstrous that breathed for her. She bit her lip, if just to feel part of her body, like she was still in it. “I’m sorry,” she finally hissed between breathless gasps that did not fill her.

Cecelia tried to parse what she’d said aloud, her hand stroking comforting circles around her back, “there was lady, and the devil in the churchyard before seven…” her voice wavered, but held, an elegant balancing act between concern for her sister and fears she dared not speak or believe. This was hysteria, but it wouldn’t do to tell her that. It felt quite real, and it demanded to be felt. At least by Dru. She couldn't let herself get nerves before her own wedding. 

Drusilla nodded, just as the door opened to Mary, who had a spoonful of something. Drusilla made no attempt to resist it. She even hoped this was madness, despite knowing somewhere inside it couldn't be. If she was a madwoman, George was safe, he’d live a long life with Cecelia. She prayed for madness, with a bitter spoonful of medicine to cement it. She could recover if she was mad. There was medicine. There was cold water, however awful it sounded. It wasn’t fatal. It wasn’t the devil come to find her—unless he was trying to drive her mad. He wouldn’t be in the courtyard. Her body dulled, went from frantic to heavy, and her vision blurred the faintest bit, like movement was just a hint too fast for her eyes to catch it.

She was mad—she had to be.

***

She registered that she was in the church, though not the journey there. She was bleary, though it had begun to wear off as they walked through the courtyard, Anne commenting that the fallen leaves looked just beautiful this time of year.

In the dying light of the setting sun, like blood washing over the stone. She saw the crack in one of the stones that George had landed on. The leaves clustered at the foot of the bench, unoccupied as of late. She felt as though her vision was testing her, showing her so much she remembered. Cecelia entered the church just as George was leaving through the back. Drusilla watched him from the doorway—bad luck to see his bride. He gave her a wave as he walked to the courtyard, “it’s a lovely night, isn’t it Dru?” He asked, a broad smile at his lips.

She bit her lip, her eyes fixing on the flower in his pocket, the same as the crown atop her sister’s head. Exactly the same, and not a detail she’d known. “Please don’t go to the courtyard,” she begged, “it’s worse luck than to see her to be out here tonight. Come in and get married.”

Anne came over to her, and reassured him, “my sister is anxious is all. She wants to have you for a brother all the sooner. I’ll bring her inside,” she offered, taking Drusilla’s arm, and escorting her inside. The doors closed, the slam of a gavel, the sentencing of an innocent man. Once again, under the watchful eyes of saints made in coloured glass, Drusilla prayed for madness. Their eyes bore down, commending what will come.

“Drusilla, love, it’s all going to be fine. You’ll see,” Anne assured her. “You’re having some kind of neurosis. Once they’re married, you’ll feel better,” she assured, helping her to a seat towards the back of the church. She meant well. She just didn't know. Cecelia looked at her, and flashed a sympathetic smile. She hadn’t heard. She didn’t know. She tried to appear brave for her. She tried to believe in madness. A star twinkled in the eye of the saviour on the cross. Was it a sign of her wish or of her damnation? She couldn't yet hear the words behind the eyes. No one there to talk to her. Perhaps that star was waiting. 

Minutes elapsed, before she rose and told Anne, “I think I’d like a walk,” keeping all inflection out of her voice. Whatever Mary had given her was weak enough. She was no longer dizzy, or numb. She couldn’t stand to sit under the eyes and the stars any longer, wondering what they still saw. She’d find her answers. If she was mad, she'd accept it. 

She took her time, trying to walk slowly.With another small smile, Cecelia excused herself into the little room at the back of the church so George wouldn’t see her in the door. Drusilla cracked the door once she was out of sight, just in time to see the blonde woman talking to George. Her decadent curls, spilling down her shoulders. The devil, lurking on the bench, his hungry eyes bearing into them. Her dress, all silky and pristine. Somehow she wasn't stained from his eyes or his hands. A fallen angel. The original sin. She couldn't be a person either.

“No!” Drusilla cried, and his paralyzing dark eyes fixed on her, and his lips curled into a smile. “No! George, don’t go!” She cried out, her throat burning with the force of the words, doubtless the whole parish heard. He wasn't threatened, knowing someone knew. the devil was stronger than man. He didn't need fear, but the fire, the blood, the hurt that his eyes telegraphed, without ever laying a hand. She was nearly faint. 

George offered her a sympathetic smile. “It’s alright Dru,” he assured her, “this lady is lost, I’ll just bring her back to her friends and then I’ll be right back here. Park Street isn’t far, and it’s a beautiful night.”

She plead, but it didn’t even fall on his ears, as Anne walked her back into the church, assuring their mum that Dru was just eager for the wedding to begin, and it had made her a trace hysterical. Her eyes met Cecelia’s, and she said, _“till death do you part,”_ because more words felt like a sin. Maybe she was mad. Maybe the devil wasn’t there. Anne wasn’t concerned in the slightest, and her mum tutting about her making a spectacle. Everyone seemed so normal, even if she felt that she was going to fly apart and the seams if she spent another moment quiet and still. More prayers, directed up to the star in the saviour’s eye, that she was mad. That the devil wasn’t on George’s heels, nor hers. Anne told her it was fine. Anne told her it would be over when they married. Anne's arm, around her shoulders. She couldn't feel it. 

The bell tolled. It startled her from her skin. She surged violently, as though electrocuted—and perhaps she would be, if this was lunacy. Anne hadn’t expected it. She lost her grip of her, and Drusilla launched herself, fast enough she left a shoe in the aisle—cinderella met midnight. She couldn't stay here a second longer.

The second chime and she threw open the door.

The third and she was down the stairs.

There was George, Pale, eyes wide like fish at the market. A stray rivulet of red down his exposed throat. The woman standing, watching, her eyes dark and sparkling. The man, the devil’s disfigured visage looking up, glowing yellow eyes into her soul. “No, _Stop!_ ” Her shrill cry was lost into the fourth chime, and time slowed as she ran to George, who struggled, limp, “please!”

_The fifth_ and the woman had caught her in wrought iron arms. Cold and unyielding. Her muddy foot, not guarded by the shoe kicking back at her, leaving traces on her dress. _The Sixth_ as she struggled and cried, her words indistinct—perhaps Anne would hear. Or Cecelia. Perhaps the star would save. The seventh and the devil dropped George, a puppet with no strings. A doll, left carelessly on the floor. His head hit with a crack, louder than it tolled.

The devil laughed, “she has the sight.” He gripped her shoulder and mockingly asked her, “can you see what I’m going to do next?” bruising grip staining her with colour, red and violet. He dared her eyes, but she could hardly understand the colour she was seeing. He shouldn’t have been able. It wasn’t time. She wasn’t in white. “Leave her, Darla. It isn’t her time yet.”

Both sets of hands released—his and hers. Drusilla didn’t feel the cobblestone when her body hit it, but saw him as though he was the entire sky, looming over and then passing, “but I will have her.”

She screamed once her throat remembered how to make sound. The eyes had known her, and denied her prayers. She wasn’t mad, this was far worse. The devil plagued her.

One star in the sky flickered mournfully. It wouldn't be alone long. 

***

She was back at home, wrapped in blankets. Cecelia’s eyes red, and teary. The officer had just left. Her mum had scolded her, asked her how she knew, what she knew. She saw the devil. No one seemed to believe, so close to the house of God. No one believed in the devil when he was using his hands. He lived within, and not outside. He'd escaped somehow. Passed the gates. 

It was silent, but for the fire crackling, and the maid busying herself about the kitchen. Silent but for Cecelia’s sniffles, and the click of her mum’s needles. She was still in white, poor girl. She’d trade it soon for black. They all would.

As ever, Drusilla was first. Her shoulder stained. She couldn’t stand to wear her dress. It had been bloody so long before she saw. Her shoulder was now raw and bruised. She’d taken off a layer of skin with the scrub brush to remove his hands. Soon. Soon.

The second time today she'd looked inhuman, a reddened, blotchy, distorted face in a sea of black mourning clothes. Eyes that searched midair and came up empty, trying to find a way it wasn't true. trying to find what soon meant. What came next. She wished she’d disappear into the dark of her clothes, but she was never fated to be a star in the sky, even if she didn't know yet. When her mum excused herself to go see if their father was done with th officers, Cecelia got up, and, through gasping sobs, she asked, “you knew?”

Drusilla nodded, and tried to get some words out, an apology. If she hadn’t been so intent on madness, on the devil not being outside the church. If she’d insisted on George coming in, been faster, been _smarter._

“You…you said the Devil…” she finally said, biting her lip and trying not to cry more. It was all Drusilla had in her to nod. No words could escape her lips. It was the first time she thought, perhaps this was the test. She'd let him die. Perhaps she ought to be damned.

“You tried to save him… thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking through. The last time I wrote this backstory, it cracked 20k, and this is already 5, so I expect it's gonna be longer. If we're lucky, and I'm feeling it, I'll be putting out the next fic in this series soon, which deals with Dru having visions while Angelus and Darla are out of town, and people beginning to suspect her of witchcraft, and ending in her seeing their return. 
> 
> I expect that fic will also skate by at T-M ish. After them will come a fic probably about how her family dies, and then a subsequent one about how she dies. Then an epilogue, because I can't stand to have it end with something as horrific as her canon death, without somehow showing that it doesn't stay that bad. Maybe I'll even make Spike into a shorter series after? Either way, the 2 big death fics are gonna be X. I know how I'm gonna handle that, because I don't want to turn it into a spectacle of Angelus' violence, but it's not a situation where writing around it, like I do in Tua Maxima Culpa is going to work. 
> 
> Sidebar: these backstory fics are canon in TMC, These Violent Delights, Common tongue, Requiem, and In Search Of ashes, as well as anything on my other pseud--it's just how I hc this going. either can be read independently though!


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